This blog is for the students enrolled in CP102 for Fall 2005 at Wilfrid Laurier University. Material here will not directly count towards your marks.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Why Blogs? Why Blogger?

Why blogs?

More and more people are keeping an online journal or web blog like this one everyday. "Blogs" as they are commonly called should be on a specific topic, but many people post random happenings as they occur in their lives. Some people have been able to gain a huge following of fans simply by writing about their lives everyday, and expressing themselves in an open and honest way.

Blogs started as a simple collection of links that people found that they thought would be of interest to others, so they found a way to share them. That will be one of the purposes of this web log.

Blogs are also making a move into the corporate and academic realm. Many companies feel that by giving their employees permisson to post information on a public web log, they can make themselves appear to be more "user friendly" or more in touch with their customers.

In education, professors who aren't afraid to try out new technologies are using web logs to have their students reach out into the online world as well as hone their writing skills. Some course material is better suited for blogging than others. While not integrated tightly into the CP102 course material, I would like to think of this as an experiment and perhaps something very useful and interesting can come out of it.

I chose Blogger as an vehicle for this log because of a few reasons. The interface is clear and uncluttered, but it has areas for useful links, and it keeps a menu of past articles at the side. It automatically archives posts so I don't have to worry about it, and students can post comments without having to register with Blogger.

It has a good editor which allows me directly edit the HTML code as well. This helpful for when I write things that don't exactly appear they way I want them to. Definitely nothing wrong with knowing a bit of HTML coding.